Osama Siddique

S.J.D. Candidate

msiddique at sjd.law.harvard.edu

Dissertation

Dissertation Title: Colonial Heritage and Post-Colonial Development Imperatives: Growing Legal Alienation of Vulnerable Groups in Pakistan and the Emergence of Alternatives

I want to explore the existence, extent, nature, manifestations and consequences of the widely perceived but academically unexplored ‘alienation’ of the Pakistani citizenry from the formal system of law and court based dispute resolution, at essentially three levels: (1) the fundamental ‘alienation’ that any post-colonial society has with its colonial legacy due to differences of language, culture, society, ethos, governance imperatives and philosophy and the mode and manner in which colonial rule displaced local laws and legal and administrative systems; (2) the additional ‘alienation’ in a post-colonial society where a representative, pluralistic and accountable democratic system, ethos and culture has not taken root due to a whole host of reasons (which I shall discuss in the Pakistani context where military rule has consistently disrupted democratic rule), which in turn further impedes populist aspirations to translate into the laws that address actual social expectations and concerns; and, (3) the additional alienation within such societies of the vulnerable groups such as the illiterate, the landless peasants, the urban poor, women, children, religious or ethnic minorities etc., that face additional disempowerment due to barriers to economic opportunity and political access – these barriers may have been created during or post colonialism.

Fields of Research and Supervisors

Law & Society with Professor Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School, Overall Faculty Supervisor
Colonialism, Post-Colonialism, Law & Development with Professor David Kennedy, Brown University
Colonial Legal History of South Asia with Professor Sugata Bose, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Additional Research Interests

Comparative Constitutional Law
Legal & Political History
Legal & Political Theory
Legal Sociology
Human Rights
Law & Economics

Education

Harvard Law School, S.J.D. Candidate 2008- Present
Harvard Law School, LL.M. 1997
Oxford University, U.K., B.A. (Hons) Jurisprudence. 1996
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan, M.B.A. 1993
Government College, Lahore, Pakistan, B.A. 1990

Academic Appointments and Fellowships

Associate Professor, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan (since 2005).
Rhodes Scholar for Pakistan, 1992

Representative Publications

Osama Siddique & Zahra Hayat, Unholy Laws & Holy Speech: Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan – Controversial Origins, Design Defects and Free Speech Implications, 17 MINN. J. INT’L L. 303 (2008).
Maryam Khan & Osama Siddique, The 2005 South Asian Earthquake: Natural Calamity or Failure of State? Exploring State Liability and Remedies for Victims of Defective Construction in Pakistan, (2007) 9 ASIAN LAW.
Osama Siddique, Martial Laws and Lawyers: The Crisis of Legal Education in Pakistan and Key Areas of Reform, Regent Journal of International Law, Volume 5, Number 1 (2007).
Osama Siddique, The Jurisprudence of Dissolutions: Presidential Power to Dissolve Assemblies under the Pakistani Constitution and its Discontents, 23 ARIZ. J. INT’L. & COMP. L. 615-715 (2006). See http://www.law.arizona.edu/Journals/AJICL/AJICL2006/vol233/Siddiquearticle.pdf

Additional Information

Member of the New York Bar Association
Member of the Lahore High Court Bar Association
Member of the Punjab Bar Council
Resume
Languages: English, Urdu, Punjabi. Persian, Arabic (basic reading ability)

Last Updated: April 2, 2009.